


Never Close Our Eyes

by Dorktapus42



Series: Shapeshifter! Cecil [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Big Rico's Pizza, Hearing Impaired! Carlos, M/M, Magic, Near-death Experiences, Science!!!!, Secrets, Shapeshifter! Cecil, Small enclosed spaces, running water into said small enclosed spaces, scary disembodied voices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 02:13:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19219507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorktapus42/pseuds/Dorktapus42
Summary: Carlos wants to find out more about Nightvale.Some things probably shouldn't be discovered.





	Never Close Our Eyes

Myths told of a large, godlike figure, clad in purple spikes and scales, as being the first to breathe life into Nightvale. 

This creature went by many names. 

The Voice. The Shadow. The Founder. Interloper. 

There were still relics of that figure today. 

Stained windows long stored, tablets of stone deep in the bowels of the town archives, even the symbol of the town resembled the eyes of their patron. Customs, real reason long forgotten, remained as relics of a longer catchphrase: ‘We greet you as we greet the Interloper.’

That was shortened over the years to simply a shout of ‘Interloper!’ whenever new people drew near.

That figure soon faded away into a figurehead, an urban myth. A founding story told to children. A ritual done by Bloodpact Scouts that always failed.

But not all figureheads were truly gone.

 

\------------

 

Carlos looked up from his notebook with a very serious expression on his perfect, perfect face. 

“I want to understand Nightvale.”

Cecil blinked, before tentatively spreading a small, confused smile on his face. “Carlos, you know Nightvale. There is nothing to understand.”

Carlos turned to face him, finger raised and rant loading.

“Oh really? What about the house? The one that should exist, would make sense to exist seeing that there are other real houses surrounding it, but simply doesn’t exist? How do you explain that?”

A frown flickered behind Cecil’s eyes. 

“You can’t be serious. Try to discover everything about Nightvale?”

“Aha! So you do admit that there’s something to understand! Something to find out! I’m a scientist, Cecil. I have to solve these mysteries!”

“But-” 

“Nothing will dissuade me, Cecil! I’m heading off to bed.” As he passed behind the couch he pressed a kiss to the top of Cecil’s head. “Love you.”

“Carlos-”

“Nothing will dissuade me!”

“But-”

“ _ Nothing _ !”

Cecil inwardly groaned and resisted the urge to move to his handy Tourism Board Branded Flask and forget. 

He’d try to get him off of the hunt in the morning. 

 

\----------

 

Carlos was gone. 

Well. He could be anywhere. 

He tried not to panic. 

He failed. 

He ran around the house in a nervous mess, Khoshekh trying to knock him out of it so he could feed him. As much as Carlos had cat allergies, he was rather fond of the cat. 

Even if at first he had just screamed and ranted about how he couldn’t possibly be a feline. 

But he was the best cat in the whole of the infinite universe, weren’t you Khoshekh?

Khoshekh just meowed for his food. 

But the act of giving Khoshekh his daily meal managed to get his logical gears a-turning. 

Where would he go if he was a perfect, crazy, amazing scientist with a penchant for the inane? 

 

\---------

 

He found Carlos by the Bluffs, looking at the horizon with great consternation and scribbling in his notebook. 

He set down the carry-out of Big Rico’s and sat down next to him, legs going over the edge. 

There was nothing but the faint sound of writing. 

He busied himself by looking at the heatwaves off the rocky ground. The shapes they made were quite pretty, if confusing. 

There were no such things at angels. Or mountains. 

And gravity? Please. Plot convenience ruled over gravity any day. And what did it have to do with apples?

Eventually Carlos looked up. 

“Oh, hi Cecil.”

“Hello Carlos. I have Big Rico’s if you want lunch.”

A large grin. “Thanks. I forgot about lunch until you said it, actually.”

They both dug into the pizza, a pleasant breeze staving off the worst of the heat. 

 

\----------

 

“I think I’m going to head down into the mine later.”

Cecil raised an eyebrow, already calculating how much forgetting they would have to do. “The mine? Why?”

“Because it’s fascinating! The rocks there are unlike anything I’ve seen-”

“You are aware of the tales surrounding that area, correct?”

Carlos waved the words away. “Don’t be silly! They’re just stories. I’ll be fine.”

They both stood. “Well would you mind if I joined you? I haven’t been to that area in years.”

“You sure? I thought you’d be bored with the science.”

Cecil smiled at him as he led the way down the bluffs. 

“But it’s  _ your _ science, Carlos. It’s just down here.”

 

\-----------

 

It was just as dark and damp as he remembered. Well, he didn’t quite remember, just- a weird sense of deja-vu. 

He followed Carlos down the rocky tunnel until they reached a chain-link gate. 

It was locked. 

But there was a giant tear down the middle, so Carlos carefully stepped around the pointy bits and walked on through. 

Cecil was, once again, wishing he was shorter at that current moment.

It was certainly a pain to get through that gate. 

They walked until the ceiling started to narrow. Carlos, vertically-challenged as he was- had no problem. 

He was starting to have to hunch over. 

 

 

By the fifth time he’d hit his head on the ceiling he was getting pretty annoyed. It was nice and cold down here, sure, and there was the sound of water everywhere, which was pretty cool, but the height thing was a pain. 

But Carlos had probably already noticed, so he just sucked it up and resigned himself to hitting his head. 

But he could just-

No. Not worth the risk. 

He hadn’t talked to him about it all just yet.

“Have you- ow- found anything?”

“There are some interesting rock formations on the walls here- are those  _ carvings _ ?”

“ _ Don’t  _ touch those.” He rocketed forwards, grabbing the scientist’s hand inches before he touched the carvings. 

“Why not?”

“They could be magical!”

“Cecil, magic doesn’t exist. I’ll be fine!”

“If you can say angels exist- which they do not- I can say magic exists. Let’s move on, alright?”

Carlos huffed and frowned, but moved on. Cecil breathed a sigh of relief before eying the symbols. 

He was really regretting letting Carlos come down here… but who was he kidding. His scientist was stubborn. He would have come down here anyway.

At least this way he could keep him safe. 

 

\----------

 

They journeyed down into a deep, almost ravine-like crevice. 

Soft glowing crystals lit the way as Carlos gushed about the possible chemical compounds in the luminescent rocks. 

They climbed down a steep wall and walked for a few metres before reaching a dead-end. 

More symbols lined the walls. 

“Huh.”

“We should probably move back up.”

“Let me take a few pictures first-”

**_TRESPASSERS._ **

The deep rumble shook the earth and caused a few pebbles to rain from the ceiling as the earth shook. 

The carvings started to glow brighter. 

Cecil grabbed Carlos’s hand and started to move backwards-

Then Carlos’s eyes moved past his shoulder and he screamed. 

Instinct had him pushing Carlos behind him and making himself as large as physically possible to block his scientist from view. 

Carlos then shrieked as the unnatural twisting and enlargening of his boyfriend’s features to something behemouthly massive and not… Cecil-y filled the space. 

“Cecil?”

His scientist’s voice was small and fragile. 

Something inside of him winced at the sound as he forced his eyes to look for danger. 

All he saw was water. 

Flowing water. 

It pooled rapidly around his feet and he shrunk, running towards the wall they had just climbed down with great splashes. 

Any footholds they had used were either crumbling away to the touch or slicked by the river. 

He molded his form like clay, trying to get a closer look at the top-

And just past the lip they had swung their legs over to get down was a massive wall of boulders, trapping them inside. 

He was back to the floor in an instant, backing away from the literal river running through the cracks in the boulder-wall above. 

He spoke in a hollow voice. 

“We’re trapped.”

“Cecil- what? No no- we can’t be trapped we-”

The water was rising now, pooling almost to their knees. 

Cecil’s eyes grew steely as he pushed his panic away, pushed up his sleeves, and forced his way back to the top of the lip, bracing himself against the wall to push against it with all his might. 

A few cracks formed in the ceiling and dirt rained down from above-

Down below the water was almost to Carlos’s chest. 

Desperation had him growing larger and larger, applying more and more force-

And something gave. 

The rocks cleared for a torrent of water to crash in, the tunnels above being replaced by some winding waterfall. 

A hand carefully cradled the frantically swimming scientist to his chest as he threw caution to the winds and stretched himself out like a growing seedling shucking off its seedy coat.

 

\---------

 

It was a surprise, needless to say, when the ground near the sand wastes exploded in a burst of dirt and water. 

Nobody was quite sure what caused the explosion, but a certain group of ~~angels~~ people named Erika nodded amongst themselves like it had decided something. 

Money changed hands, as if they had cashed bets. 

The City Council resumed their push of more standardized tests. 

Time continued to... do its thing. 

 

\----------

 

Cecil held Carlos to his chest as he walked the streets towards their house. 

It said something about the town they lived in that, despite Cecil being about three times his normal stature, nobody blinked at it. Nor the fact that they were covered in quickly drying mud and water. 

They went inside with little resistance and Carlos was set down gently on the couch and covered with a light blanket. 

Cecil looked at his sleeping boyfriend for a moment before kissing him on the forehead and going to wash up. 

It had been an eventful day. 

**Author's Note:**

> This was really fun to write. This (and the one that comes after it whenever I post that) were originally different things, but I had this idea and went: ooh. So I brought them together.   
> I hope you enjoyed, and thank you for reading! Have a great day!


End file.
